Now For Something Completely Different

Saturday I did something I have never done before: I went to a shooting range and shot 150 rounds through 3 different handguns. I have spent some time shooting riffles at Scout camp but two days ago was the first time I ever shot a handgun. I share this experience with you not to make a political statement. Instead I want to share what it felt like to be a total beginner at something when I felt everyone expected me to be an expert.

My youngest son has a brother-in-law that has gotten him into guns. My son has real natural talent when it comes to shooting. It is something we noticed at scout camp when he could hit incredibly small targets with a .22 riffle. As my son is now trying to develop that talent, I thought I would educate myself on the subject. I found myself alone on Saturday as my wife was in Idaho helping her parents move and so I headed to one of the local gun ranges.

I made sure to visit the website before I left the house so I knew what services they offered and that they would rent me a gun as I do not own one. I walked into the range and quickly filled out an online waiver. Then I met with one of the sales associates. I explained that I had shot a riffle but was there to test out handguns and had never shot one before.

The first thing he needed to do was make sure I was not some crazy guy trying to do something tragic in their gun range. He made me call someone that I had seen within the last 24 hours so he could ask a few questions. My first thought was to turn around and walk out. Then I found it very comforting to know that gun ranges take mental health issues very seriously. I called my daughter whom I had spent the morning rock climbing with down in Maple Canyon. He asked her a few questions and then could proceed with getting me set up.

This is where everything started to run together. I knew the basic rules of handling a firearm such as always assume it is loaded, keep it pointed in a safe direction, etc. Specifics about each gun sort of ran together though. I started with a .22 semi-automatic and the same 9mm that my son just purchased. The associate gave me a basic tutorial about both guns. I tried to remember it all but forgot a lot. Then I headed off to my own semi-private lane wearing eye and ear protection.

I got to my enclosed booth and put my target up and sent it out to 8 meters. It seemed really close but I wanted to start easy. Next I pulled out the .22. I then tried to remember how to correctly load the magazine clip. I did okay and quickly got over my fear that I would do something wrong. I put the clip in the gun and then pulled the slide back to chamber the round. Then I tried to remember what I was told about how to correctly hold the gun, how to aim, and to remember to bend my arms. Then I fired my first shot. It went down and to the left of where I aimed. I emptied the magazine (10 shots) and discovered I am a horrible shooter.

I play a lot of shooter video games and am a pretty good shot in them. Discovering that video games don't translate to real life should not come as a big surprise but it did. After the first 10 shots I wondered how much I would improve over the next 140. Spoiler alert, not much. Part of that is because I didn't have anyone helping me. I had read a few articles online and had an understanding of the basics, but I could have done with a coach there by my side helping me shoot. I shot a few more magazine clips of the .22 and then loaded up the 9mm.

I learned something new with the 9mm handgun: all those movies that make it look easy to load a magazine clip are wrong. It is actually very difficult at first. The spring is very strong and it is tough to push down the bullets into their enclosure. While the magazine held something like 10 bullets, the most I could ever get in was 9. I shot the first round and found I am much worse with the 9mm than the .22.

One of my biggest fears was that the gun would jam and I would have to figure out how to extract a dangerous bullet from a nastily jammed position. Well it didn't take that long for it to happen. All the information I got from the lecture before I headed into the range was immediately forgotten. I had to figure it out on my own. Fortunately I got it unjammed. When the pistol kept jamming, I made sure it was empty and then traded it for a different and bigger 9mm gun.

Towards the end of my time at the range I decided shooting handguns was not as much fun as I thought it would be. Part of that came from the fact that I really am a lousy shot, or so I thought. I finished shooting all 150 rounds, returned the rented guns, and paid my bill. Then I made sure to call my son and share my experience with him. The first thing he said is that the target was too far away for a handgun. To qualify for the concealed-carry permit, the target only needs to be at 5 meters. That would have been great information before I started. I might have felt better about myself and my abilities.

My experience at the gun range taught me a lot about what it feels like to be a beginner. I really should not have gone there without someone who knew what they were doing. Having a coach would have made for a much more pleasurable experience. Remember that as you go to try something new with technology. See if you can't get someone who knows what they are doing to help you along. Don't let them do it for you or you won't learn anything but see if you can get them to help you learn. You will be so much better for it in the end.

Engineering for Fun

One of the first things I learned in engineering school is that there is always more than one way to solve a problem. In school we always looked for the most efficient way as that is generally considered the best solution. Yesterday I saw a comic strip that showed a young boy skipping stones across a pond. You could also see his idea of how he could use a playground slide to skip himself across several wading pools. That is a fun engineering solution. Sure it may not work, but it looked like a very fun idea and brought a smile to my face. Now I am wondering if I missed something in my engineering classes and instead of looking for the efficient solution, I should have been looking for the fun one.

There is a video on YouTube that shows the fun way to remove a tree stump. It takes forever as you effectively burn it out of your yard and that takes several days, if not weeks. The creator of the video is right though, it is the fun way to remove a tree stump.

Perhaps the idea of engineering for fun is where Rube Goldberg got his ideas for elaborate devices he drew in his comic strips. There are now competitions around the world to see who can create the most fun contraption in his honor. Who says engineers are boring nerds that don't know how to have fun?

For most of the projects at work, I will need to continue to find the most efficient way of solving the problem, however, I also want to start thinking about fun solutions. My guess is that a chuckle or two will be the only benefit of this new way of thinking. My hope is that one or two "fun" solutions make it into production. If that is the case, I'll be sure to post about it.

Don't Forget Your Laptop Charger

My oldest son is visiting my youngest son in Ohio for the remainder of the week. I got a text from him this morning that he forgot to bring his laptop charger for his MacBook Pro. He has one of the latest models that still uses an Intel chip. That means he has pretty good battery life but not as good as the recent models that use the M1 chips. It also means that his laptop uses a USB-C connection to charge the battery.

I am not a fan of Apple constantly changing how to charge their devices. It doesn't matter if it is an iPhone, iPad, or a laptop; the charger used today will be changed on newer releases of the hardware. I did like the change to USB-C for their laptops though as it does offer alternatives to using Apple-specific chargers. Hopefully they stick with it for awhile.

When my son mentioned that he left his laptop charger at home, I suggested he try connecting his phone charger to his computer to see if that will work for the week. I know that USB chargers have some intelligence. They will start charging at the lowest specified power and then negotiate to charge at the highest power possible. The Apple-brand charger for their laptops are rated at 96 watts where a phone charger is rated to only a few watts. My son tried that and an hour later after not using the laptop at all, his battery power increased from 16% to 17%. That wasn't going to work.

Ultimately my son had to run into town and get a charger from Walmart. They had one for $40 instead of the usual Apple price of $70 so he could save himself some money. Having left my laptop charger at home on more than one occasion, I could feel my son's pain. Fortunately he came up with a relatively inexpensive solution.

Done with my Latest Hackathon Project

This week I have had the pleasure of participating in a Hackathon for work. Unfortunately I can't describe my project as we have been asked to keep them secret until after the judging has completed. Six months ago, I didn't worry about sharing my project as it did not relate to my job at Sony PlayStation at all. This project is actually a good idea that would benefit the company as a new product idea as well as being a good corporate citizen. Perhaps in the future I can point to an actual product or service and say that started as my simple project.

As with the Hackathon 6 months ago, this one ended up being completely virtual. That means I spent a large amount of time getting video of myself building the project. When you have to plan everything you do around a video camera, it really slows down the work. I also had to take time to create the 4-minute video that will be used to judge my project. I started this morning at around 11am and the video still isn't complete. Fortunately I am rendering the video and just waiting for iMovie to spit out the file that I will upload to the judges tomorrow morning. It has been rendering for the past hour and I hope it completes shortly.

Creating a 4-minute video is incredibly difficult if you want to do it correctly. For starters, there is so much to say about the project that it is tough to keep it under 4 minutes. I had to leave a lot of the details out. Some of those details are what makes the project spectacular and so you want to include certain things and then leave others out. Assuming you have all the footage from creating the project, you then have to narrate the process you followed. It took me about an hour to get all of my audio recorded. Then I had to sync the audio with the video and still images.

I have to confess that I prefer still images over video. If you need an extra second or two, it is easy to add with a photograph. If you have important steps you are showing in a video, you have to make sure the narration matches exactly. There are tricks you can use but it is not as simple as using pictures.

Ultimately I am glad I participated in the Hackathon as I learned a lot. I also had a significant amount of fun and think I did something worthwhile. I hope the judges agree.

Glad to be Home

My wife and I have been traveling a lot over the past several months. We spent a week in Hawaii and then followed that up with five weeks on another island a month later. This past weekend we visited my youngest son in Ohio with his family. Last night we returned home and my wife let me know she is done traveling for awhile.

Even when travel goes perfectly, it can be rather arduous. Last night we experienced a number of small disruptions that all added up so that we didn't get home until 2 hours after our scheduled arrival. I'm sure that contributed to my wife's comment about not wanting to go anywhere. I admit it felt like a death by a thousand cuts. There wasn't any one issue that made for a big delay, just a lot of little ones.

We left Columbus, Ohio on time and arrived in Atlanta, Georgia early. Those that know the Atlanta airport know it is huge with 6 different terminals. Naturally we landed at terminal A and had to make our way to terminal F to catch our next flight. As I mentioned, we landed early and had plenty of time to take the train. It still required a lot of walking even with the train. We got to our new gate and found two seats where we patiently awaited for our next flight.

Our plane came in from Athens, Greece and required thorough cleaning. While we had a plane, we started boarding a little late. Then the flight only had 9 empty seats. An Airbus A-330 has a lot of seats and so it took a very long time to load all of those passengers. Our scheduled departure time came and went with people continuing to load the plane. Finally everyone boarded and we pushed back about fifteen minutes late. Soon the pilot came on and explained that the wind shifted and we had to reposition the plane to the opposite end of the runway with all of the other flights preparing to take off. Once in the air, the flight went relatively well but we landed 40 minutes late.

I am a firm believer in two types of luggage: carried on and lost. We carried on all our bags and made a straight line for long-term parking once we landed in Salt Lake City. A lot of flights were landing at the same time and the line to board the shuttle to get to our car was massive. It took about 15 minutes just to board the bus and another 10 minutes to get to our car. Fortunately SLC has an abundance of non-human cashiers at the parking exit and it did not require waiting in line to leave the airport.

By this point, we thought we had experienced all of the delays for the evening until we came across late-night road construction. We had five lanes of traffic merge down to one. That added another delay which compounded on the others as we tried to get home to go to sleep. Eventually we made it, albeit significantly later than we hoped.

Those that travel a lot have come to appreciate being at home. Those that don't travel much but then do a few trips in rapid succession discover how satisfying home can be. My wife falls into that later group. At least we can rest for a month or so before our next trip.

Mobile Phones Can Be Painful

It is too hot here in Utah this summer but I still got on my bike and headed out for a morning ride today. I started the ride in the heat and it only got hotter. I looked forward to completing my ride but towards the end I came across an auto/pedestrian accident that lengthened my time in the sun. Guess who wins an an auto vs. pedestrian accident? If you said, "Nobody," you are correct. Fortunately the pedestrian was not hurt severely but did get taken away in an ambulance.

I arrived just after the accident happened and took it upon myself to direct traffic around the poor woman lying in the street. She had the young driver of the car next to her on the phone with emergency medical services, also known as 911. The poor driver was crying and explaining how the accident happened. While directing traffic I tried to help the other two people that stopped and were performing first aid while we waited for the paramedics to arrive.

So what happened? Why did a young girl getting off the freeway run into another woman walking across a crosswalk? I did not witness the accident and can only share what I heard at the scene and can surmise based on where the car stopped and the victim lay. Having seen my fair share of bicycle accidents, the pedestrian was not hit very hard. The driver came off the freeway and was slowing down as she came to the intersection. She was distracted by her phone and didn't see the pedestrian in the crosswalk until it was too late. She immediately stopped and got out of her car to help the injured person. That was mistake number 1 and the biggie.

There was a second mistake made by the pedestrian crossing the street. She was also on her phone and missed noticing that a car was coming down the road. Her mistake was significantly less important when finding fault for the accident but one that could have saved her some significant pain. Had she been paying careful attention to the cars on the road she might have been able to jump out of the way.

Please understand that I don't fault the pedestrian for getting hit. She was in a crosswalk and had the right of way regardless of if she was on her phone or not. My only point is that paying more attention to her surroundings could have kept her from receiving a minor face laceration, a bruised hip, and a concussion this morning.

Mobile phones are one of the greatest inventions of our time. We are all instantly contactable and can use them to remain more productive than we would be without them. Unfortunately they require our attention and sometimes that can be unhealthy. Fortunately in this morning's accident, nobody was seriously injured and the only severe consequence is that someone's insurance will go up.

Is Working From Home Driving Us Crazy?

Friday evening last week I boarded a plane in Lihue, Hawaii and made the disappointing trip home. I spent 5 weeks working from the wonderful tropical island of Kauai and could easily have spent another 5 weeks there. Unfortunately there are a number of duties I have back at home and am back to my old-boring routine of working from home in Utah.

In Hawaii, one of my nightly rituals included spending an hour at the pool and hot tub. Most of the people staying at the condo complex were vacationing and so I got to meet quite a few people. On one evening towards the end of my stay, I met a medical doctor who was in Hawaii for 3 weeks. His wife is also in the medical field and they only get one long break every year that they can use to take a vacation. This year they spent it in Kauai. It surprised him that I was there for 5 weeks. I explained that I didn't need to burn any of my vacation time as I was still working every day. That sparked a conversation about the negative impact of working from home during the COVID-19 pandemic.

While I have thrived working from home over the past 16 months, I am actually an anomaly. I don't have any kids at home that like to spend time on conference calls with me nor am I using my bedroom as my office. I have a dedicated office with all of the tools I need to keep working from home. My home office actually rivals my work office, which might explain one of the reasons I am thriving.

While sitting in the hot tub, the doctor and I discussed the various ailments that people are exhibiting because of working from home. He personally has noticed a lot of anxiety disorders. Part of that comes from using one's bedroom as their office. One of the work-from-home seminars I was asked to attend mentioned the problem with that. You start to associate your sleeping area as your work area and when it comes time to go to sleep at night, your mind reverts back to work and it can be difficult to fall asleep as well as stay asleep. Anxiety also arises from concern over dealing with younger children and keeping them entertained. Having a parent dedicated to watching the kids helps but a lot of families require that second income and so parents are juggling kids while trying to work.

Looking at the title of this post, I would say that the answer is definitely, "Yes," for a number of people. Working from home is definitely driving those people crazy. But with most broad statements like that, there are exceptions to the rule. The trick is to do everything you can to minimize the downsides of working from home until you are welcome back at the office. Then be prepared as some of your coworkers only show up at work when necessary.